With the advent of conference call systems, whether it is via analog signal (e.g., telephone circuit) or via digital signal (e.g., Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)) technologies, has come advantages and conveniences to the conference call participants, most notably in the business world.
There are disadvantages with meetings held via a conference call system. For example, unlike with a live, in-person conference or meeting, the nuance of body language, facial expressions, hand signals, and the like, cannot typically be conveyed to others. With any conference or meeting, more than one participant will attempt to communicate at, or near, the same time. This lends to confusion and diminishes the quality of the meeting as various participants will concurrently talk and/or talk “over each other”. This is further compounded as the number of participants increase. Compounding the shortcomings of a conference call are that the various forms of non-verbal communication are not present to aid in keeping order, sequence, and control to the various participants talking. This is even exacerbated with a VoIP conference call. With conference call systems there is no efficient control mechanism to address these various issues.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists to overcome one or more of the deficiencies in the related art.